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APPROVED 6/12/17
<br />1 decided, that is irrelevant to what you're deciding here tonight. You have a very specific
<br />2 interpretation of the law and that is the statute surrounding agro- tourism and it's relation to farm,
<br />3 bona fide farm, use and operations. But that timing, even if it was a factor is again not something
<br />4 that defeats this because even if they hadn't done any of those things prior to the Special Use
<br />5 Permit there is no law, there is no authority, there's no legal authority that says she can't just
<br />6 change. And after that whole thing, decided ok, well then, the way I can do this is through agro-
<br />7 tourism, through bona -fide farm. There is nothing that stops that. That's not what the record shows
<br />8 at all. The record specifically shows that this was all part of what her vision was and what the plan
<br />9 was, both her and her husband, Kara and Chris Brewer. But, for arguments sake, it wouldn't even
<br />10 matter if that was the case. There is no authority that says they can't do that. Where they put in
<br />11 their building permits, how that changed, and again you heard Mr. Harvey's testimony that they
<br />12 rejected her January permit. They sent that back and asked for her to do it over again. That was
<br />13 not her changing it or that wasn't her own actions in trying to gain the system. That's absolutely not
<br />14 what's going on here. The Brewer's have started a bona fide farm. That is incontrovertible. The
<br />15 evidence of what of what their operations are as introduced at the last hearing and supplemented
<br />16 tonight show that they have substantial investments already in agricultural activities from the
<br />17 $50,000 that they'd invested in chestnut operations, the hundreds of trees that they're putting into
<br />18 the ground, both in Caswell County and on this site combined, and the extensive flower, cut
<br />19 flowerbeds that are being installed, bees that are being cultivated on the property, the
<br />20 incorporation. So this kind of leads to our second fallacy that Ms. Brown has constructed around
<br />21 this what I like to think of is the straw barn argument in this case, is that she's reduced this down to
<br />22 the four corners of this structure and what is the use of the barn. But again, there is no legal
<br />23 authority for narrowing the analysis to those four corners of that structure. But even if that were the
<br />24 case there is. It could be zero percent of that barn is being used for farm activities, because while
<br />25 she constantly hit on the word incidental to she omitted in most cases the word related. It's related
<br />26 or incidental to. And as you can see under tab 2 David Owen's book, land use law in North
<br />27 Carolina, he goes into, on page 182, rules of interpretation. This is under tab 2. And on page 183,
<br />28 at the top, on the second column, first sentence is, "it's all terms within a provision and all
<br />29 provisions within an ordinance must be considered and should be considered as a whole ". You
<br />30 can't read just incidental and ignore related. Related is a very broad term. She also referred to the
<br />31 intent. And Mr. Owen's addresses intent, he's got a whole section on intent, and I would draw your
<br />32 attention to those from Professor Richard Ducker, who wrote an article on this topic. It's dated
<br />33 2011.
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<br />35 James Bryan: That's ok. Which one is it? I've got that one.
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<br />37 Andy Petesch: And I will point out he repeatedly indicates throughout this article the expanding
<br />38 nature of the farm exemption in a statute so it's increasingly, with almost every new amendment
<br />39 draft that's adopted to this new provision that's adopted it's an expansion of the exemption and not
<br />40 a contraction. Again, you can see the intent of this is to broaden what's included within it and not
<br />41 contract and not look more restrictively at it. So again, we don't have a definition of non -farm use.
<br />42 We do have definitions of bona fide farm purposes. Those are again, and this was referred to by
<br />43 Ms. Brown and I believe this was County Exhibit number 3 earlier tonight, the grant of power
<br />44 153a340, 106581.1, and 99e -30. I would point out Ms. Brown did note this, although she had
<br />45 indicated that it was not incorporated, not that one, the definition agriculture defined was not
<br />46 directly implicated in section 153a340 in here. You're actually directed by the statute the grant of
<br />47 power to look at 106581.1, this is in tab one, as defined in that section. And that goes on to include
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